A Texas man who booted a sick cat some 20 feet through the air on a dare “as if kicking a football field goal” was sentenced to over three years in jail for the horrifying, caught-on-video attack, prosecutors said.
Donaldvan Williams, 30, sent the feline flying in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the town of Beaumont on Oct. 15, 2021, when he and a pal, Decorius Mire, came upon it and Mire goaded him into the cruel act.
The cat had been “convulsing and foaming at the mouth as if it had been poisoned” before Williams stepped in and made its misery even worse, according to the indictment against Williams.
The impact sent the pet flying approximately 15 to 20 feet through the air, prosecutors added.
Mire filmed the incident and posted the video on his social media accounts, where it was commented on and shared by others, prosecutors said.
Mire was sentenced last year to 18 months in prison, while Williams was sentenced Tuesday to three years and four months in prison for animal cruelty violations, the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas said in a statement.
Court also records show that after Williams kicked the cat, the poor pet’s torture wasn’t over.
A third person, whose identity was not known when the case was presented to a grand jury, poured an accelerant on the cat and set it on fire, according to the indictment.
Mire “filmed the live, injured cat being set on fire, and running while engulfed in flames, trying to escape from the fire,” according to the indictment.
The video, uploaded to social media, was viewed and commented on by numerous people, according to the indictment.
Each man’s guilty plea stemmed from kicking the cat and recording it, not with the animal being set on fire, court records show.
It was not immediately clear whether the cat survived the torment.
